Hospital readmission, especially for people with chronic diseases, is a major contributor to high healthcare costs and has a huge economic impact on the healthcare system. Nearly 20 percent of Medicare patients discharged from hospitals are readmitted within 30 days for an exacerbation of the diagnosed condition.
Congestive heart failure (CHF or HF) is a chronic cardiac disease and a leading cause of death in the United States. CHF occurs when the heart is unable to adequately supply enough blood to maintain a healthy physiological state. CHF may be treated by drug therapy, or by an implantable medical device (IMB) such as for providing cardiac electrostimulation therapies, including resynchronization therapy (CRT) to correct cardiac dyssynchrony within a ventricle or between ventricles.
Patients with worsened HF, such as decompensated heart failure, may have a high hospital readmission rate within six months following hospital discharge. Readmission is responsible for high cost of heart failure management. An unplanned readmission occurs when a patient is readmitted to a hospital within a certain period of time (e.g., 30 days) after having been discharged from the hospital for treatment of the same or related condition, such as heart failure, pneumonia, or other comorbidities.
Chronic disease management can reduce hospital readmissions and lower health care costs. For example, reduction of unplanned readmissions for HF or HF comorbidities may be achieved through reliably identifying the patients with worsened HF condition. Proper post-discharge patient monitoring may lead to reliable and robust readmission decisions, thereby reducing the readmission rate and providing timely treatment to those who require rehospitalization.